On February 12th to 14th, Dr Jenny Mbaye was invited to take part in the inception meeting of the EU/UNESCO Expert Facility held in Bangkok, Thailand.

Within the framework of the initiative ‘EU/UNESCO Expert Facility on the Governance of Culture in Developing Countries: Creating a new regulatory environment for the cultural and creative industries and South-South cooperation’, 42 experts (out of 350 applications) have been selected for a 4-year mandate (2019-2022). The renewed Facility notably includes three alumni students of City’s MA Culture, Policy and Management for which Jenny currently acts as Programme Director: Meijing He (2003); Andrea King (2005); and Bodibaatar Jigjidsuren (2015).

UNESCO works with the Expert facility to develop training tools and materials, deliver country level intervention through different modalities (workshops; advisory technical assistance; capacity-building interventions, mentoring, coaching, project evaluation, policy advice) and to engage in research and advocacy activities.

Jenny shared insights from her previous UNESCO mission in supporting the Government of Rwanda to prepare and submit its first Quadrennial Periodic Report on the state of art of its cultural and creative sector as member-Parties to the Convention 2005 on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression. Her intervention focused on ‘Providing Expertise and Policy Monitoring Support: Testimony and lessons learnt from mission in Rwanda (methodology, impact, challenges)’.

More details on the UNESCO Expert Facility can be found: https://en.unesco.org/creativity/capacity-building/expert-facility/list-experts